Critical Reflections on Data Collection Methods: Sociology Assignment

This report presents a critical reflection on three data collection methods: structured interviews, questionnaires, and surveys. The student begins by providing a brief overview of each method, explaining their core principles and applications. For structured interviews, the report highlights their standardized nature and ability to gather comparable data, along with strengths like assessing participant awareness and weaknesses such as time consumption and inflexibility in question alteration. The discussion on questionnaires distinguishes between qualitative and quantitative approaches, describing their versatility in data collection through various formats, and the benefits of cost-effectiveness and scalability. Weaknesses include potential dishonesty and difficulties in interpreting responses. The survey section emphasizes cost-effectiveness and generalizability, while acknowledging the limitations of inflexibility and limited depth. The student critiques each method's strengths and weaknesses in the context of their discipline, professional interests, and research goals, providing a comprehensive analysis of each data collection technique.

Running head: CRITICAL REFLECTION
Critical Reflections on 3 Methods of Data Collection
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
Chosen Method: Structured Interviews..................................................................................2
A brief overview of the method.........................................................................................2
Critique the strength and weakness of the method in its application to your discipline,
professional and research interests.....................................................................................2
Chosen Method: Questionnaires............................................................................................3
A brief overview of the method.........................................................................................3
Critique the strength and weakness of the method in its application to your discipline,
professional and research interests.....................................................................................4
Chosen Method: Surveys.......................................................................................................5
A brief overview of the method.........................................................................................5
Critique the strength and weakness of the method in its application to your discipline,
professional and research interests.....................................................................................5
Bibliography...............................................................................................................................6
[Student Name] CRITICAL REFLECTION Word Count: 1031

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While performing any research we have come across several kinds of research methodologies
that are required for the research to be conducted and provide a feasible solution to the identified
issues according to the ways by which the collection of data follows. However, there are several ways
by which the research methodologies and the collection of the data follows through a research based
on the type of the research that follows. In simple words, the research methodology helps in finding
out the solution to any problem so that the process of collecting the information and relevant data
regarding the research helps in taking feasible related decisions. Following would be a reflection
paper that would focus the research methods of Structured Interviews, Questionnaires and Surveys to
reflect on their brief overviews and the critique for the strengths and weaknesses of the methods
according to their applications, professionals and the research interests.
Chosen Method: Structured Interviews
A brief overview of the method
According to my readings, I have seen several approaches to the concept of structured
interviews where it has also been regarded as standardized interviews and the surveys that are
administrated by the researchers. According to my understandings, I have come across the ideas of the
structured interviews to find that these methods mostly focus on the fact that there are a set of
questions for the interviews and these are kept the same every time and in the same order for all the
participants for the interview. Therefore, the aggregated answers to the interviews according to the
participants can be feasibly analysed based on the sample subgroups and the survey periods. There
would be a feasible comparison to the interview answers as well.
Critique the strength and weakness of the method in its application to your discipline,
professional and research interests
As per my assumptions, there are several strengths and weaknesses to this particular form of
the research method. Following would be the critique about the strength and weaknesses according to
my understanding of the concept for the structured interviews:
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Strengths
 It helps in making the researcher understand about the participant of the interview to
have an idea about how aware or in-depth idea about the research topic does the
participant have.
 According to its application for further research analysis, this is one of the most
powerful formative assessment.
 Standardizing the interviews by analysing the similar kinds of the responses by the
participants can be done by this research.
 Happens to provide a better source for further qualitative research.
 I also believe that this method provides a better procedure for collecting data
efficiently, quickly and in the easiest way possible.
Weaknesses
 This process happens to be a bit time consuming if the sample group happens to
become extremely larger than the expected size.
 There is no way by which the information can be altered or their usefulness can be
changed as they are dependent on the questions asked. I do not think that an ongoing
interview has the provision for the questions to get altered.
 Pre-planning to the ethical considerations of the interview as well as the total
contribution of the sample size needs to be obtained.
 I also believe that since the participants cannot be coaxed to provide their interviews,
there is a lot of wastage of time that the open-ended questions build up as there might
be occurrences where the participants might provide incomplete answers to the
questions.
Chosen Method: Questionnaires
A brief overview of the method
As per my learnings, questionnaires are a type of the research methods that can be classified
both as a qualitative and a quantitative method, but that would be dependent on the nature of the
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questions for the questionnaire. When it comes to the quantitative researches, these are normally the
proper close ended questions that mostly are in the form of multiple-choice answers and the analysis
is done either by pie-charts, percentage, frequency analysis or the bar charts. When these are open
ended questions, they are regarded as qualitative ones that involve critical analysis and discussions
that do not require analysis with the involvement of numbers and critical calculations. There can be
several types of this research method, followed by, computer or online questionnaires, telephone
questionnaires, in-house surveys, or even conducted through mail.
Critique the strength and weakness of the method in its application to your discipline,
professional and research interests
Strengths
 The process is absolutely inexpensive, they are practical and the results obtained are
faster as per the other methods that I researched about.
 The scalability and the comparability are much enhanced a feature for the methods
and the analysis process is extremely easy.
 The data obtained are valid and they are extremely reliable with no pressure allotted
to the participants. Moreover, I believe that there is a scope that the respondents and
the participants can be extremely anonymous while the conduction of the research.
Weaknesses
 There might be chances that the answers by the respondents are dishonest, which I
might not be able to differentiate. Again, the participants skip questions, have issue in
interpretation of the questions and even lack the nuances.
 The skipped questions and the dishonest answers may have issues in analysing and
this will create fatigue while the survey and issues in accessibility.
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Chosen Method: Surveys
A brief overview of the method
I have identified that this is a process where the conduction of the researches is dependent on
the surveys created for the respondents and are sent through various different ways. It is then analysed
statistically about the received answers to the surveys and if there can be a meaningful conclusion
drawn from the analysis of the data. There can either be a face-to-face survey, a survey conducted
over the phone or online surveys.
Critique the strength and weakness of the method in its application to your discipline,
professional and research interests
Strengths
 Surveys are mostly cost effective in nature and they are mostly generalized well.
 These are reliable and versatile in nature
Weaknesses
 Surveys are not flexible enough because of the questions set before the conduction of
the surveys.
 There are several areas where the depth to the survey gets lacking in several areas as
well.
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Bibliography
Abro, M.M.Q., Khurshid, M.A. and Aamir, A., 2015. The use of mixed methods in management
research. Journal of Applied Finance and Banking, 5(2), p.103.
Bryman, A., 2017. Quantitative and qualitative research: further reflections on their integration.
In Mixing methods: Qualitative and quantitative research (pp. 57-78). Routledge.
Drake, B.F., Rancilio, D.M. and Stafford, J.D., 2017. Research methods. In Public Health Research
Methods for Partnerships and Practice (pp. 174-187). Routledge.
Hair Jr, J.F., Wolfinbarger, M., Money, A.H., Samouel, P. and Page, M.J., 2015. Essentials of
business research methods. Routledge.
Kallio, H., Pietilä, A.M., Johnson, M. and Kangasniemi, M., 2016. Systematic methodological
review: developing a framework for a qualitative semi‐structured interview guide. Journal of
advanced nursing, 72(12), pp.2954-2965.
Knoke, D., Marsden, P.V. and Kalleberg, A.L., 2017. Survey research methods. The Blackwell
companion to organizations, pp.781-804.
Nardi, P.M., 2018. Doing survey research: A guide to quantitative methods. Routledge.
Patten, M.L., 2016. Questionnaire research: A practical guide. Routledge.
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